About me

I have lived in Japan for 37 years and currently live with my husband and 5 cats. My two children are living and working in the States. I have been a quilter for over 20 years but I am semi-retired and teach English occasionally. I love the Bible and Jesus and try to serve as I can to His glory

Quilting profile

I'm a self-taught quilter who for the past 20 years has progressed through trial and error mostly using Japanese books. I belong to a small group of quilters and we yearly make a bazaar quilt but on my own I dabble in hand piecing and strip piecing and hand quilting. Since joining the blogging world I've enjoyed Wonky piecing and am trying to get a handle on machine quilting using a domestic machine.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Maneki neko

Yesterday I had a creative morning. I spent most of it up in the sewing room and I have made another cat block and have put all cat blocks together into one big block. I hope to get the dogs put together this week too and then I'll show you what I've got.

Anyway, here is my cat block just because I wanted to explain what I was aiming for. This is a maneki neko. In Japan you can find them at the entrance to many shops or over the doors. Maneki means welcome and neko means cat. While in America, you call to someone to come by moving your fingers towards you with the palm facing upwards, in Japan, the palm is facing down when the fingers are moved (try it) and this means "Come here." When cats wash their faces they move their paw up over their eyes and down and Japanese interpret this to mean that the cat is calling to you.

There is a legend that a samurai warrior saw a cat waving him into a small shop and because he made the slight detour he was saved from an ambush. Hence the belief that a maneki neko brings good luck. Some maneki nekos hold gold coins which is supposed to mean the cat is calling in wealth to the home or shop. The shopkeepers probably display the maneki neko in hopes that both customers and money will feel welcomed to the business. My maneki neko does a good job of welcoming many people into my home, but his monetary powers seem to be somewhat lacking...

Thanks for telling us about the good luck cat! I see it everywhere in Vancouver, B.C., and I always wondered about the story behind it. When my friends and I were in a competition last year, the image of the cat was our "mascot"...!